Computational Investigation of Worst-Case Wind Loads on a Heliostat Pod for Different Reflector Aspect Ratios

Heliostat structures contribute significantly to the cost of a central receiver power plant. This study was concerned with obtaining wind loadings on a modular heliostat pod (HelioPOD) that houses six reflectors as developed by Stellenbosch University’s Solar Thermal Research Group (STERG) using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Mean wind loadings were obtained for different combinations of elevation and azimuth angle, as well as different reflector aspect ratios, meshing and parameterizing the domain with ANSYS Workbench v15.0 and solving the steady-state flow field using ANSYS Fluent.